• Sustainability

Climate and Food Production Consuming Too Much Habitat

• #30x30
• agriculture
• biodiversity
• climate change
• extinction
• food

According to a new study in the journal Nature Communications, the development of natural habitat for agriculture and urbanization, as well as the transformation of habitat caused by climate change, are “major causes of the decline in range sizes, and two of the most important threats to global terrestrial biodiversity.” 

Why This Matters:  Food production processes emit lots of carbon, and now we see that food production also drives loss of habitat and thus species’ extinction.

• Animals

Let’s Stop Bankrolling Extinction

• biodiversity
• climate change
• extinction
• finance
• nature

by Amy Lupica, ODP Contributing Writer According to a new report, last year the world’s largest investment banks invested over $2.6 trillion in industries tied to the destruction of the natural world. The analysis found that 50 top investment banks provided financial services tied to extinctions and ecosystem destruction valued at more than Canada’s GDP.  […]

• Sustainability

“Unsustainable Exploitation of the Environment” Will Lead to More COVIDs

• 30 by 30
• biodiversity
• Campaign for Nature
• CBD
• IPBES
• nature
• zoonotic disease

Yesterday leaders from 190 countries were supposed to have met in Kunming, China for final negotiations on a biodiversity treaty designed to address the world’s urgent extinction and biodiversity crises. Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic has made attendance of the UN Biodiversity Conference impossible. However, a panel of experts from the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and […]

• Politics

China and the U.S. Trade Environmental Barbs

• #30x30
• biodiversity
• China
• climate change
• emissions
• greenhouse gasses
• IUU fishing
• plastic
• pollution
• United Nations

Yesterday the Chinese government released a detailed condemnation of the U.S. government’s environment and climate policies.  Labeled as a “Fact Sheet of Environmental Damage Caused by the US,” it contains a litany of U.S. environmental failures.

Why This Matters:  The U.S.’s shot at China came after the Chinese announced at the UN General Assembly that China plans to be climate neutral by 2060.

• Food

New WWF Report Emphasizes the Power of a “Planet-Based” Diet

• agriculture
• biodiversity
• food security
• nutrition
• plant-based diet
• WWF

The World Wildlife Fund’s (WWF) recent 2020 Living Planet Report exposed that the most important direct driver of species loss is land-use change, in particular, the conversation of pristine native habitats into agricultural systems. Which is why what people eat makes such a difference in stopping the degradation of nature. This is the focus of a […]

• Animals

Renewed Hope as Tasmanian Devils Return to Mainland Australia

• 30 by 30
• Australia
• biodiversity
• extinction
• extinction crisis
• Tasmania

by Amy Lupica, ODP Contributing Writer  The Tasmanian Devil, the world’s largest carnivorous marsupial, has set foot on mainland Australia for the first time in 3,000 years. Conservationists led by Liz Gabriel, the director of Aussie Ark, released 11 Tasmanian Devils into Barrington Tops wildlife refuge north of Sydney in the state of New South […]